Write a Website Business Plan

Having a website these days is almost a necessity to doing business. Whether you’re a retailer, providing a service, or are operating purely online, launching a new website needs the same careful consideration as launching any business.

Write a Website Business Plan

A well thought-out plan is vital to the success of any business or new venture. Who are your target markets and are they online? Are your competitors online, and if so, what do they offer? How will you market your site?

What do you want your website to accomplish? A website can be used as a distribution channel (selling direct to customers) and/or as an advertising or promotional tool, so it's important to know what you what your website to be. 

Refer to the How to Write a Business Plan article for guidance on how to write an effective business plan.

If applicable, you’ll also want to consider consulting an accountant and a lawyer for issues to do with ecommerce, taxation, privacy, and other legal rights and restrictions.

Reserve Your Domain Name

Even if you’re not going to be online for several months, you should carefully research and reserve your domain name as soon as you can.

Your domain name doesn't have to be your business name; a location, campaign, or task-driven domain name can be just as effective. Take your time to research your domain name options, and choose a domain name that is simple, easy to spell, memorable, unmistakable, and that you like and that will inspire you and your customers. You might also want to consider reserving both the .ca and .com extensions (to avoid confusion in your market), as well as potential misspellings. Read more about domain name extensions and see domain name tips.

Register Your Domain Name on Key Social Media Networks

It’s hard to turn on the news without hearing about Twitter or Facebook, or to read a business magazine that doesn’t mention LinkedIn. Online marketing efforts are shifting and social media networks have become a viable and, in some cases, an essential online marketing tool.

Your small business may not use these sites yet, but you likely will in the future. Like a domain name, it’s important to register your business and/or domain name on key social media networks.

Marketing

Marketing Online: Promoting Your Site 

In order to generate online sales and traffic, you need to actively market and advertise your products and services, both online and through traditional media (print advertising, brochures, signage, etc.).  

Research your market before introducing new products, services, or expanding to a new geographical region. Take advantage of online social media tools such asTwitter, Facebook, Yahoo Upcoming, and YouTube to market and raise your customers' awareness about your products and services.

You can also advertise online on different search engines. For example, Google AdWords lets you target ads to different geographical markets based on different keywords. 

Refer to our Website eMarketing Checklist for tips and advice.

Your Website is an Extension of Your Brand

The experience your customers have on your website reflects on your business; a frustrating experience on your website can diminish your brand. Not only should you make sure your brand extends to your website, you should ensure your site is designed so your customers experience a productive and enjoyable visit. 

Manage Your Customer Relationships

More and more people expect to be able to interact with a company through its website. Your contact and customer service information, such as shipping and return policies, should be easy to find and understand.

You can also use your website to collect customers’ names and, with their permission, send periodic emails, eletters, or mail to promote your company. If you do collect customer data, be sure your website has a privacy policy and legal disclaimer. You might need to consult with an Internet or privacy lawyer to cover all regulatory aspects of your online business.

To manage your interactions with your customers, you can take advantage of customer relationship management (CRM) systems. There are even free applications available, such as SugarCRM’s CRM solution.

Take Advantage

Take Advantage of Website Analytics Tools

You can use free web analytics tools such as Google Analytics to find out how many visitors you have, how much time they spend on each of your web pages, from where they are visiting, and what sites led them to yours. Are customers leaving your site quickly? Are you getting a lot of “abandoned” shopping carts? Analytics tools can help you determine why.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization): Make Sure Your Customers Can Find You

Many of your customers type keywords into search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, or MSN to find products and services. Optimizing your website for search engines—making sure your site is populated with these keywords—can improve your ranking and can drive more traffic to your website. You can then take advantage of this traffic to convert regular visitors to potential repeating customers.

Marketing Online: Promoting Your Site 

In order to generate online sales and traffic, you need to actively market and advertise your products and services, both online and through traditional media (print advertising, brochures, signage, etc.).  

Research your market before introducing new products, services, or expanding to a new geographical region. Take advantage of online social media tools such asTwitter, Facebook, Yahoo Upcoming, and YouTube to market and raise your customers' awareness about your products and services.

You can also advertise online on different search engines. For example, Google AdWords lets you target ads to different geographical markets based on different keywords. 

Refer to our Website eMarketing Checklist for tips and advice.

Make it Easy

In some respects, your website is like a living, breathing thing; it’s available 24X7, and requires consistent care and feeding.

Unlike a printed brochure, your website can continually evolve and improve through better content, easier navigation, greater functionality, and testing. Here are some tips for improving your site—and your customers’ experience with your site—by creating a more powerful and effective web presence.

Make it Easy for Your Customers to Access and Navigate Your Site

• Your website’s UI (user interface) should be simple, easy to navigate, and be up to date.
• The colour schemes used for backgrounds and copy should be pleasant and easy to read.
• Take into account web accessibility which ensures that those with vision impairment or dexterity challenges can use your site. This could be as simple as having an option to increase the size of the text on your website.

Keep Your Audience in Mind at All Times

Write your website content for your customers. Your content should be relevant, up-to-date, easy to read, and should convey how your products and services can be of benefit to your customers. Read more tips on web copywriting here.

Test, Test, Test

Make sure to test your website with different types of Internet connections such as cable, ADSL, and modem to see if the pages load fast. Avoid using graphic-intensive images that slow your site down without providing useful information.

Test your website with different browsers such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Safari. You may be surprised how your web pages appear in different browsers. 

Not everyone updates their browser to the latest version. It’s common that earlier versions of a browser will not properly show the content of your website. Design your website to be compatible across a wide variety of browsers and browser versions.         

Test different functions on your site, such as checkout and registrations, with your customers. Ask someone to perform a specific task, and watch them to see how they fair. Do they struggle to make a purchase, or request information? Make sure the most important calls-to-action (e.g. "Buy Now" and "Contact Us"), are clearly visible on any web page.    

Selling Your Online Business

There could any number of different reasons that you’ve decided to exit your online business, or shut down your website.

Before taking your site down altogether, explore the options available to you with knowledgeable web professionals. Together, you might be able to determine how you can improve your website to attract the traffic or sales you had planned to achieve.

Selling Your Online Business

If you have explored all your options and still would like to exit your online business, then your current domain name and portions of your online business could be valuable to others.

For this reason, you may consider selling your online business, or the domain name by itself. You can advertise your online business for sale on any number of online marketplaces.

Be prepared to provide the following:

• Past performance, such as number of visits, page views, bounce rate, and other website metrics. Web analytics tools such as Google Analytics can easily generate this kind of information.
• Business costs
• Professional financial statements showing a minimum of 2-3 years of business history (if you are operating an ecommerce site)
• Growth potential

It also helps to inform your potential buyers about the reasons you're selling your online business. If you’re honest, you will have a better chance of establishing their trust and making the sale.

Selling your online business may involve non-compete agreements, due diligence disclosures, and multiple contracts. A successful sale could have tax implications as well. Consult a lawyer and an accountant for guidance.

Online Marketplaces

These online marketplaces specialize in selling websites and ecommerce sites. Please know that website brokers typically charge commissions for sales.  

Most bloggers post

Most bloggers post their content in hope of receiving a lot of comments. Apart from being a potential source of feedback, comments reflect user interest and are one of the best indicators to gauge a reader’s reaction to a blog post. We all want people to love our work and engage in intense discussions about our brilliant ideas, right?

If you are struggling to get readers interested in a discussion, do not despair and give up blogging altogether. Blogging is an important way to bring in loyal visitors to your website, to build up your search engine ranking, and to generate ad revenue. So, instead of throwing out all of your hard work, try some of the following suggestions below for writing posts that encourage comments.

Regularly Scheduled Programs

One of the crucial elements of the success of a blog is traffic. Unless a blog gets ample traffic, people won’t know that the blog exists and obviously the blog won’t get any comments.

 

The best way to build traffic is to post on a regular schedule. Regular posting does several things for you:
 

• Provides consistent content for search engines - search engines like Google look for new content. The more you provide, the better for your rankings. The assumption is that newer content is more relevant.
   
• Gives readers something to expect - if readers know to expect regular posts, they're more likely to check in or subscribe to your blog. The more they read, the more likely they are to post comments.

Strong Position

Taking a strong position in a post encourages readers to express their opinion and share it with you. Readers find it much easier to engage bloggers with a clear position than those who just post content that does not elicit any opinion. Interesting and well-written content also garners plenty of attention and comments.